Several hotels are using a new solution, Olery Feedback, to solicit input from guests onsite and electronically as a means to respond to their concerns and t0 head off complaints about the property in social media.
That's the word from Olery, an Amsterdam-based reputation management firm, which declined to identify the "large, well-known hotels" already trying out Olery Feedback. The company picked up $1 million in funding earlier this year to bankroll expansion efforts.
The tool enables hotels to place tablets or computers in guestrooms, hotel restaurants and lobbies to obtain guests' feedback while they are on-site so the property, if necessary, can respond swiftly and so the hotel doesn't feel the heat from unsatisfied guests on Twitter, Facebook or their social media weapon of choice.
Olery Feedback can also be accessed from guests' laptops or mobile devices.
The immediacy of the feedback collection is said to be a vast improvement over comment cards and post-stay email surveys.
The new solution, which comes with some suggested surveys, will drive faster response times and "more quality feedback," says Kim van den Wijngaard, co-founder and CEO of Olery.
For the hotel, Olery Feedback is customizable, available in multiple languages and comes with the ability to drill down on the data based on the restaurant, spa, hotel floor or specific room, the company says. These features enable hotel managers to respond to individual or trending complaints, Olery states.
An upcoming version of Olery Feedback will enable hotels "to incentivize guests who complete the survey on-site by offering them something to complete the survey," a spokeswoman says. "This could be a discount in the restaurant or a free appetizer, a percentage off their room, a complimentary in-room movie or free Wi-Fi."
Another forthcoming feature would enable hotel managers to publish guest reviews to the hotel website and to other hotel review websites, the Olery spokeswoman says.
However, if incentives are paired with guest reviews then that would run afoul of some review sites' policies, but the Olery spokeswoman says incentives would not be a mandatory component.
Here's an Olery video on how the system works:
And, the pricing plans for the product are here.